In the health industry of the emergent world, bacterial related diseases and infections which are recognized or identified are mostly therapeutically prevailed by way of antibiotics and bacteriostatic agents. Accordingly, there is a great momentum in producing modern microbial antibiotics and medicaments globally. Nonetheless, such modern antibiotics and medicaments may represent a considerable number of complications including prohibitively expensive in terms of its sources and increasing toxic effects. Owing to this eminent circumstance, substantial progress, has been made in this regard in order to further determine and thus provide a natural origin solution to economically produce such antibiotics or bacteriostatic based treatments.
Proceeding from the above, one of the natural origin solutions is discovered in plants, whereby the usage of phenolics and flavanoids, which are most abundant and ubiquitous products of secondary plant metabolism, has been recently implicated therapeutically. Under normal condition, they are often used as a defense mechanism against animal predation and the like.
Plants which are used for medicinal studies contain a wide range of substances and compounds that can be used to treat chronic as well as infectious diseases. Such implication is increasing rapidly, more particularly in areas where the use of plant based medicines is of great importance.
Additionally, recent studies have begun to examine and heightened the role of plants extract in the context of producing treatments or medications against microbial diseases. Further studies on the extracts and biologically active compounds isolated from plants have significantly increased in the past decades.
A relatively conventional exemplary of a plant species which is found to be exhibiting considerable antimicrobial effect is the sesame leaves (Shittu 2006). Studies were conducted based on the leaves of the said plant species (Sesame radiatum) for antimicrobial activity, and the ethanolic extract of said plant has shown mild inhibitory effect on the growth of streptococcus pneumoniae and candida albicans. The said ethanolic extract contained essential oils, mainly phenolic and carboxylic acids groups.
The present invention focuses on the enhancement of the medicinal properties of another prominent plant species, namely the palm fruit (Elaies guineensis). It is presently known in the art that the palm fruit botanical extract contains a rich source of phenolic compounds, beta-carotene and vitamin E, which are prominent nutritional antioxidants that act as scavengers of oxygen atom or free radicals, and thus known to be effective against skin aging, heart disease and cancer.
In addition, the palm fruit is the source of palm oil which is obtained from palm fruit and palm kernel oil, whereby the source is the fruit seeds. According to studies, palm oil and palm kernel oil are composed of about 50% and 80% of fatty acids, respectively. The palm fruit contains fatty acids ranging from C6 to C18, at which the palm oil is found to contain high amount of palmitic acid while the palm kernel oil is found to contain high amount of lauric acid. In addition to the phenolic compounds, Vitamin E and beta-carotene, the high content of fatty acids in palm fruit may also play a significant role in providing the bacteriostatic effect on certain and antimicrobial activity on certain micro-organisms.
Apart from the above, high content of phenolics may contribute significantly to bactericidal properties in palm fruit based extract.
The present invention provides a new approach in using palm fruit, particularly in preparing a composition based on botanical extracts obtained from oil palm vegetation liquor for providing bacteriostatic or inhibitory effect against a number of micro-organisms.
It is further added that the high content of phenolics in the composition in accordance with the present invention provides bactericidal effect against micro-organisms.
Consequently, the primary object of the present invention to provide a composition based on compounds extracted from vegetation liquor of the palm oil milling process where the composition exhibits inhibitory effect against micro-organisms.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an improved composition and method based on compounds extracted from vegetation liquor of the palm oil milling process for producing a broad spectrum antimicrobial effect which is non-toxic.
It is further the object of the present invention to provide an improved composition and formulation for producing a composition containing antioxidants and phenolics obtained from the botanical extracts of oil palm vegetation liquor devoid of chemically prepared adverse drug reactions in a patient in need thereof.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a composition and formulation for producing a composition containing compounds obtained from the botanical extracts oil palm vegetation liquor having antimicrobial or bacteriostatic effect.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a composition and formulation for producing a composition containing compounds obtained from the botanical extracts oil palm vegetation liquor having bactericidal effect against micro-organisms due to the high content of phenolics in the said composition.